Consumerism Quotes

• Advertising tries to stimulate our sensuous desires, converting luxuries into necessities, but it only intensifies man's inner misery. The business world is bent on creating hungers which its wares never satisfy, and thus it adds to the frustrations and broken minds of our times.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Frustration, Men, Luxury

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• The writing has been on the wall for some years now, but we are a nation illiterate in the language of the wall. The writing just gets bigger. Something will eventually bring down the charming, infuriating naïveté of Americans that allows us our blithe consumption and cheerful ignorance of the secret ugliness that bring us whatever we want.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Wall, Ignorance, Writing

  Barbara Kingsolver (2011). “Small Wonder”, p.317, Faber & Faber

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• [Capitalism is] that commercial system in which supply immediately answers to demand, and in which everybody seems to be thoroughly dissatisfied and unable to get anything he wants.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Answers, Demand, Want

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• Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.

  Will Rogers

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

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• True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods.

  Aristotle

  Happiness, Flow, Virtue

  Aristotle (2012). “Politics”, p.20, Courier Corporation

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• We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.

  Erich Fromm

  History, Growth, Connections

  Erich Fromm (2013). “Sane Society Ils 252”, p.134, Routledge

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• In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

  Ivan Illich

  Two, Envy, Addiction

  Tools for Conviviality ch. 3 (1973)

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• Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Nature

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• The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.

  Elise M. Boulding

  Happiness, Lying, Simple

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• We no longer live life. We consume it.

  Vicki Robin

  Live Life

  Vicki Robin, Joe Dominguez, Monique Tilford (2008). “Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Ind ependence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century”, p.41, Penguin

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• Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.

  William Ruckelshaus

  Nature, Lunch, Pollution Control

  Business Week, June 18, 1990.

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• In fast-moving, progress-conscious America, the consumer expects to be dizzied by progress. If he could completely understand advertising jargon he would be badly disappointed. The half-intelligibility which we expect, or even hope, to find in the latest product language personally reassures each of us that progress is being made: that the pace exceeds our ability to follow.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Moving, America, Progress

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Don't underestimate the power of the vigilante consumer.

  Anita Roddick

  Bollywood, Underestimate, Blank Stares

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• What consumerism really is, at its worst is getting people to buy things that don't actually improve their lives.

  Jeff Bezos

  People, Worst

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The folly of endless consumerism sends us on a wild goose-chase for happiness through materialism.

  Bryant H. McGill

  Wild Imagination, Wild Geese, Materialism

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• All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

  Noam Chomsky

  Inspirational, Media, People

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• We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

  Winston Churchill

  Sad, Wealth, Curse

  Sir Winston Churchill, Jack Fishman (1974). “If I lived my life again”, W.H. Allen

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• 

  You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.

  Vernon Howard

  Life, Happiness, Success

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• This drive to always want more is based on the misconceptions that having more will make me more happy, more important, and more secure, but all three ideas are untrue. Possessions only provide temporary happiness. Because things do not change, we eventually become bored with them and then want newer, bigger, better versions.

  Rick Warren

  Ideas, Bored, Important

  Rick Warren (2012). “The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?”, p.27, Zondervan

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• I do think if you aim for quality, it's not so much about consumerism. The idea is 'Buy less, choose well, make it last.'

  Vivienne Westwood

  Thinking, Ideas, Quality

  "The Only Punk Left: Vivienne Westwood". Interview with Kathryn Flett, www.harpersbazaar.com. February 5, 2013.

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• Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Running, Men, Thinking

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• Consumerism is, quite precisely, the consuming of life by the things consumed. It is living in a manner that is measured by having rather than being... and consumerism is hardly the sin of the rich. The poor, driven by discontent and envy, may be as consumed by what they do not have as the rich are consumed by what they do have. The question is not, certainly not most importantly, a question about economics. It is first and foremost a cultural and moral problem requiring a cultural and moral remedy.

  Richard John Neuhaus

  Simple, Envy, May

  "Doing Well and Doing Good: The Challenge to the Christian Capitalist". Book by Richard John Neuhaus, 1992.

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• The people who have more money and goods than any people in the history of the world spend most of their time worrying about not having enough.

  Jim Wallis

  People, Worry, World

  Jim Wallis (1981). “The call to conversion”, Harper San Francisco

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• It all depends on whether you have things, or they have you.

  Robert A. Cook

  Motivational, Success, Simplicity

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• There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Life, Happiness, Smart

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